[Jones - "Was there enough room between the two of you, or did Al have to get out of the way in order to swing that hatch open?"]

[Mitchell - "I had to get out of the way so that he could swing the hatch open. It was tight. I had to turn around and back right up against the instrument panel - the circuit breaker panel - so that the door could come open and Al could turn around and back his way out through it."]

[Jones - "While the door is actually opening, is it mostly over on your side, or is it centered?"]

[Mitchell - "The handle was on his side and the hinge was on my side. So it opened from his side toward me. He had to back in the corner while it swung open."]

[Jones - "Right. But, once it was swung open and you were backed into your corner, then he had two-thirds of the cabin or something like that."]

[Mitchell - "Right."]

113:41:05 Shepard: Would you hold it (the hatch) for me, please?

113:41:06 Mitchell: Yep, I got it.

113:41:08 Shepard: Thank you.

113:41:09 Mitchell: Okay,...

113:41:10 Shepard: I can get it now.

113:41:12 Mitchell: Straighten up.

113:41:13 Shepard: That's silly. It hung...There we go.

[Shepard, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "I was
unable to reach, without a great deal of difficulty, the PLSS feedwater
lever. It's because of the location of the PLSS, behind the suit, where I
couldn't get my hand in there when the suit was pressurized. We had done
some last-minute adjustments (prior to launch from Earth) to allow a better
aiming of the camera bracket in the front of the RCU and, in fact, that's
what did it (that is, made reaching the feedwater control difficult). So,
if I'd struggle with it, I think I could have made it, if I'd had to do it
on my own. It turned out to be easier to Ed to do it for me, so we
proceeded...on both occasions (that is, both EVA Preps) using that
technique. I guess in rechecking the PLSS mounting after we had changed the straps, we used a one-sixth-g rig in the suit room. I guess this assumption wasn't quite right, because I didn't have any problem reaching it in the suit room, but I did in the actual suit."]

[Another factor that may be contributing to the problem is that, in
response to the depressurization, the suits are quite hard and stiff. Once the suit pressure decays to the 3.85 psi operating pressure and they get outside, reaching the control will be easier. On Apollo 17, Jack Schmitt could not reach his control in the cabin, but had no problems out on the surface.]

[They are waiting for the PLSS sublimator to begin
functioning. After they begin the flow of feedwater, a layer of ice has to build up in the sublimator. It is the ice that actually sublimates and carries off the heat brought to the sublimator by the closed-loop flow of water from the Liquid-Cooled Garment. This wait for cooling also lets the suit pressure decay. At elevated pressure - about 4.8 psi - they are almost immobile.]

[They are now on the cuff checklists. Ed's first page starts with
"Assist, Monitor (Al's egress)".]

[The small area available to the crew at the front of the cabin is best illustrated by images taken during final Apollo 16 (LM 11, Orion) and Apollo 17 (LM 12, Challenger) LM close-out on the pad at the Cape prior to launch.]

[A view from above shows the LMP's PLSS (without the OPS) and two helmet bags (containing the LEVAs) filling the space. As detailed on pages LV-4 and 5 in the Lunar Module News Reference, the useable floor area measures about 55 inches (140 cm) from side to side and about 36 inches (91 cm) from the hatch to the base of the 18-inch (46 cm) 'midstep' behind the crew stations. Note that the PLSS dimensions are about 26 inches (66 cm) long, 19 inches (48 cm) wide, 9.5 (24 cm) inches thick at the base, and 8.75 (22 cm) inches thick at the top. The photographer was standing on the midstep, with its edge near the bottom of the frame.]

An Apollo 16 frame taken through the open hatch shows a member of the close-out team standing on tiptoes on the midstep, with the ECS on his right and stowed itens behind the Commander's station on his left. A similar Apollo 17 frame shows a member of the close-out team sitting on the Ascent Engine cover. Finally, an Apollo 16 frame shows the top of the engine cover with Velcro strips and cloth straps where the LM crew secured the helmet bags after re-installing the drogue and probe in preparation for undocking from the CSM.]

[Jones - "Can you describe what gyrations Al had to go through with
you in there to get himself in position to get out?"]

[Mitchell - "He turned around, once we got the door open, and leaned
against the left cabin wall. There was a handrail there, or guard rail.
He got down with his left knee first, then his right knee, and backed himself in a circle, turning out through the door with my
guidance."]

[Jones - "So he was facing his side of the spacecraft and got down in
a kneeling position...."]

[Mitchell - "He was facing the back, side corner."]

[Jones - "And then stuck his feet out through the hatch and then, as
he got his feet out, edged himself around so that he was pointed straight
out the door."]

[Mitchell - "With me guiding him all the way. I mean, I was watching
what he was doing and guiding him."]

[Jones - "Now, how about yourself when you got out with him not in
there. Was it basically the same thing?"]

[Mitchell - "I had a little more room. Once he was out then I closed
the door, got on his side and opened the door full open. That way I had
more room to maneuver. And, without him in there and the door fully open,
I could lean against the step and back out pretty straight. Remember, I
had to go in and out two or three times, so I got pretty proficient at
doing it."]

[In addition to not having Al in the cabin, Ed had the advantage of a
softer suit when the time came for him to get out.]

[Mitchell - "Getting your head down with the LEVA on,
etc., and trying to get down, that rear step (the so-called midstep which is the eighteen inch transition from the flooring where the astronauts stand to the higher decking that surrounds the ascent engine cover) came right in front of your face. There was barely room for you to get your butt and the bottom of the PLSS out the door. You brushed the LEVA right across the (mid)step. I mean, it was tight."]

[Jones - "There was some mention of 'don't scratch your visor' on one of the missions."]

[Mitchell - "That's exactly right. It was so tight. There's just
barely room for your torso - from the back of the PLSS to the top of your helmet - to get by there."]

113:47:10 Mitchell: You'll have to get mine when I come out. Okay. You're clear. Go on out. (Pause)

[Mitchell, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "I
disliked deploying those antennas inside. I think it's because we broke off a couple in practice. I'm still against deploying those antennas inside, except as we did with Al. He was on the way out and was obviously clear when I deployed it. This procedure leaves the LMP with his antenna folded until he gets outside. I suggest we do it that way because I would hate to see you snap off an antenna on the plus-Z-27 bulkhead on the first EVA. I think it's highly probable."]

[The plus Z-27 bulkhead separates the front the cabin from the back, just in front of the ascent engine cover. The plus Z-27 bulkhead is also the front face of what is called the Midstep. The astronauts had to exercise care coming into the cabin to avoid hitting vulnerable parts of the EMU on the bulkhead, particuarly scratching visors on the top of the midstep as they maneuvered into kneeling position.]

[Shepard, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "No problems with the stability and balance. We had done this on two separate flights on the one-sixth-g airplane and practiced getting it out on that. We didn't do any training in the water tank, but felt that the airplane training was adequate for the occasion."]

[After getting the jettison bag from Ed, who probably slides it out with his foot, Al probably lifts it over the porch rail and lets it drop to the ground. Once he gets down to the surface, Al will kick the jett bag under the descent stage to get it out of the way.]

[The LEC is the Lunar Equipment Conveyor, basically a clothesline they will
use to get the Equipment Transfer Bag (ETB) down to the surface. Ed will
attach the LEC pully to the yellow bar in the overhead inside the cabin. By the time of Apollo 16, the crews will have decided that the LEC is more trouble than it's
worth and will carry most of their gear up and down the ladder by hand.
On Apollo 14, Ed will be the first to dispense with the LEC, at least in
some instances, and will carry some gear up to the cabin by hand. The ETB
contains the cameras and film magazines.]

113:49:43 Shepard: Okay, Houston. While he's working on the LEC, let me comment that it certainly is a stark place here
at Fra Mauro. I think it's made all the more stark by the fact that the
sky is completely black.

113:50:01 McCandless: Roger. (Pause)

113:50:11 Shepard: Okay, I have the conveyor now. (Pause) Out of
the (LEC) bag. (Pause) And it's deploying. (Pause)

[Rather than take the LEC completely out of its stowage bag
and have it turn into a ball of knots as he hands it out to Al, Ed only
takes enough of the LEC out of the bag to make his connection in the LM and
then hands the bag out to Al who can let the LEC drape down to the ground.
At some point, Ed closes the TV circuit breaker, as per
checklist.]

113:50:36 Shepard: And standing by to deploy the MESA. And the MESA has released. MESA has released properly, Houston.

113:50:50 McCandless: Roger, Al.

[Al pulled a release lanyard mounted to the left of the
porch. By doing so, he let the Modular Equipment Stowage Assembly or MESA,
which is hinged at the bottom, swing out and down to a working height. The
MESA actually swings down 30 degrees past horizontal so that, if there
happens to be a crater where the astronauts need to stand to work at the
MESA, they can still reach it. Once he gets down to the surface, Al will
adjust the MESA to a comfortable working height.]

[Shepard, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "We had practiced
deploying the MESA with the flight hardware. We knew pretty much what to
expect with the descent stage, as a result of the C-Squared-F-Squared (Crew
Compartment Fit and Function). We had done that at the Cape with the
actual vehicle."]

113:50:52 McCandless: Roger. (Long Pause) Okay, Al. Beautiful! We
can see you coming down the ladder right now. It looks like you're about
on the bottom step. (Pause) And on the surface. Not bad for an old man.

[Al was born on 18 November 1923. At 47, he is by far the
oldest of the Apollo Moonwalkers (painting by Ed Hengeveld). Birth dates of the others, in age order,
are: Buzz Aldrin, 20 January 1930; Jim Irwin, 17 March 1930; Pete Conrad, 2
June 1930; Neil Armstrong, 5 August 1930; Ed Mitchell, 17 September 1930;
John Young, 24 September 1930; Al Bean, 15 March 1932; Dave Scott, 6 June
1932; Gene Cernan, 14 March 1934; Jack Schmitt, 3 July 1935; Charlie Duke,
3 October 1935. Jim Lovell and Fred Haise, who saw their opportunity
vanish in the Apollo 13 accident, were born 25 March 1928 and 14 November
1933, respectively. Jim Irwin was the second oldest moonwalker at 41. Charlie Duke was the youngest at 36.]

[The TV camera is positioned on the MESA to record Al's descent to the
surface. The bottom rung of the ladder is about 3 feet - one meter - above
the footpad. The ladder is attached to the west strut and, therefore, Al
is in deep shadow. He has his visor up.]

113:51:26 Shepard: Okay, you're right. Al is on the surface. And
it's been a long way, but we're here. (Pause) Well, I can see the reason
we have a tilt is because we landed on a slope. The landing gear struts
appear to be about evenly depressed.

113:51:51 McCandless: Roger; out.

[At first, Al stands at the bottom of the ladder, turning once to look off to the west.]

113:51:52 Shepard: I'm moving around (but not away from the ladder), getting familiar with the surface. The surface on which the forward (west) footpad landed is extremely soft. As a matter of fact, it's in a small depression. The soil is so soft that it comes all the way to the top of the footpad; it even folded over the sides to some degree. The same is true of the plus-Y (north) strut.

[Shepard, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "We got down the ladder fine, down on the ground fine, and had no mobility or stability problems to speak of. It takes a little while to get adjusted to it, but it's no more than just a couple of minutes before you're off and running. This business of having to adapt slowly is a familiarization process. Do it very slowly. Other fellows have made comments about its being different as far as
controlled c.g. (center-of-gravity) is concerned. However, if you fly in a one-sixth-g airplane and then go through a period of zero-g, you get to the point where you're not so heavy handed with the maneuvers. I really felt right at home almost immediately as we got on the surface. Balance was good and getting control was good. I did not fall down at any time during either EVA. I got down on my knee a couple of times to pick up some things, but I got right back up again. Never, at any time, did I have any trouble with falling down and balance. We had the same problems everybody else did with the (TV and errectable S-band antenna) cables, of course. You have to
watch them. We pulled the television camera over one time. That's just a
matter of the cables being there and, sooner or later, you're going to run
into them."]

[Mitchell, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "I agree completely with Al on the ease of mobility. The one-sixth-g training was all we really needed. There was no big problem with overcontrol, stability, or anything."]

[Except for Armstrong and Aldrin, who were purposefully cautious and conservative, none of the astronauts took more than a few minutes before they were literally running, hopping, and skipping, taking advantage of the weak lunar gravity field and spending as much time with their feet off the ground as possible.]

113:52:32 Shepard: (Moving out of the TV picture to the north) Okay, we'll move on over. Take a look at Fra Mauro...(correcting himself) take a look at Cone Crater, I should say, which is right where it should be, and is a very impressive sight. You can see the boulders near the rim (garbled under McCandless)...

[As per checklist, Ed takes two pictures of Al out
the window. These are AS14-66-
9229 and
9230. Note that Al has distinguishing stripes on his helmet, arms, and legs. He has moved around to the north side of the spacecraft, near the MESA, and is using his hand to shield his eyes as he looks east toward Cone. Ed took the photo out his own (north) window.]

[Lennie Waugh was captured a detail showing Al's watch and checklist. The picture was taken at about 1455 GMT/UTC or 0855 USCST and the watch seems to be showing a time close to 9 o'clock.]

[Ulli Lotzmann has provided a photo of the stripe on the left arm of Al's suit ( 155k ), taken in August 2004 at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's Garber Facility.]

113:52:53 McCandless: Antares, this is Houston. You are Go for two-man EVA. Over.

113:53:01 Mitchell: Roger, Houston. Thank you.

[As indicated in his checklist at 0+16, Ed has been verifying that the circuit breakers are still in the proper configuration and, also, is checking to make sure that the VOX system is set at maximum sensitivity. On Apollo 11, Buzz left the VOX system with less than maximum sensitivity and did not
always trigger the system when he was out on the surface. The B&W TV
mentioned in the checklist is a backup to the color system currently
mounted on the MESA, just in case they burn out the color camera a la
Apollo 12, or have some other problem with it. Ed puts it on the floor so
that, if he has to come up to get it, he can reach in and grab it, rather
than having to get all the way in.]

113:53:06 Shepard: And, continuing, we can see the boulders on the
rim. It looks as though we have a good traverse route up to the top of
Cone. I can see Cone Ridge going along to the north. That's very
apparent. (Pause) I'm moving over to adjust the MESA.

113:53:40 McCandless: Roger, Al. (Long Pause)

[The horizon tilts in the TV picture as Al raises the MESA
to a comfortable working height.]

113:54:14 Shepard: (At 0+22 in his checklist) Okay, the MESA is adjusted. Going over to remove the MET (thermal) blanket. (Long Pause)

[The Mobile Equipment Transporter is the handcart or
rickshaw that was unique to this mission. It is stowed on the MESA and is
the first piece of equipment to be taken off. Al raises the MESA some more
to get at the MET. NASA photo KSC-70C-156BW (scan by J.L. Pickering) shows the MET stowed on the MESA prior to installation of the MET thermal cover.]

113:55:44 McCandless: Okay, Ed. We can see you coming down the ladder, now.

113:55:54 Mitchell: And it's very great to be coming down.

113:55:56 McCandless: Roger. Bottom step. (Pause)

[Ed has his visor up - as Al did - and we can see the central white stripe of his Snoopy helmet. After getting to the bottom rung, he jumps off and falls slowly to the footpad, letting his hands slide down the outer ladder rails.]

113:56:08 Mitchell: That last one is a long one. (Pause) (Hopping back up to the first rung of the ladder, just barely) Ascent check. Very easy to do. A little push and just spring right up.

113:56:26 McCandless: I guess we got there with those lightweight
(PLSS) units.

[Mitchell - "This is a reference back to the
conversation about the lightweight PLSSs that Ron Blevins handed in to us in training."]

[Jones - "Did you do any ladder training in the airplane?"]

[Mitchell - "No. That was a problem because, on Earth there was no
way you could get up to the lowest rung. With a fully extended strut,
somebody had to give you a boost to get from the footpad up to the first
step. In the suit and with all that weight, you couldn't get up there but,
as you can see on the video, it was a piece of cake. But we were
concerned. And, furthermore, you couldn't see your feet, so it was all by
feel."]

[Jones - "Did you do any ingress - or egress - practice in the one-sixth-g airplane? You only had 35 seconds per parabola, so there wouldn't have
been time to get all the way in or out."]

[Mitchell - "No. I don't think we did much in the airplane. We may
have tried going through a door but that 35 seconds really wasn't enough.
The problem is the confinement of the cabin and then getting down and
maneuvering yourself out that door. As I recall, the airplane didn't help
much for that."]

[Jones - "Well, I guess the first two crews had had such an easy time
of it that you weren't concerned."]

[Mitchell - "Yeah. They didn't express abnormal difficulty. They
expressed exactly what we experienced in the real thing in the spacecraft.
That it's cumbersome as hell and difficult but (the thing to do is) be
cautious and move slow and you can do it."]

[Jones - "And on this ascent check, what I thought I saw on the video
is that you had your hands on the sides of the ladder and then..."]

[Mitchell - "Push up with your legs and pull with your arms."]

[Jones - "And then move your hands up and grab higher."]

[Mitchell - "And you can see, it was relatively easy. I just kind of
bounced up and gave a little pull with my hands."]

[Ed lowers his visor and goes off-camera to the right (north) to join
Al.]

113:56:45 McCandless: Al, this is Houston. Have you released the
MET, yet? Over.

113:57:02 Shepard: Okay, Houston. The MET is finally clear of the MESA.

[Shepard, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "I had no
problem adjusting the height of the MESA at all. In one-sixth g, it comes
up and down very easily. I was surprised that the thermal blankets were
glued on so tightly. I guess in training we use them so much, they come
off a lot easier. The first surprise I had was when I tried to remove the
thermal blanket for the MET. I grabbed the ring to pull it off, and the
ring came out and the blanket was still on there. So I had to get it down with my hands. The difference is that that clear tape used to tape that stuff on makes it that much tougher. It came off all right, but we had to use a little bit more strength that I had expected to have to use to get it off. The pins on the MET pulled fine. The insulation blanket on the bottom of the MET, between the MET and the MESA, actually held it up there.
So I had to pull it off when the pins were released. The one-sixth-g
weight wasn't enough to make it fall down. So, anyway, we finally got it off (and) we put it on the plus-Y (north) footpad (as can be seen in AS14-66-
9255, which Al takes at about 114:53:38)."]

113:57:06 Mitchell: Al, I'm going to come over. How about getting my (OPS) antenna out before I lose comm here in a minute...

113:57:11 Shepard: Okay.

113:57:12 Mitchell: ...if I go around the corner or something.

[On Apollo 17, Cernan and Schmitt waited until they were both outside before they deployed the OPS antenna and had no comm problems. Indeed, before Schmitt joined him, Cernan walked over to two craters several tens of meters from the spacecraft and had excellent comm.]

113:58:01 Shepard: Okay, Houston, the MESA (meaning MET) has been
stowed on the plus-Y (north) footpad.

113:58:06 McCandless: Roger. Out. (Pause)

[Training photo KSC-70P-524 shows Back-up Commander Gene Cernan stowing the MET in the plus-Y footpad during a 14 December training exercise. PhotoKSC-70P-503 (scan by J.L. Pickering) shows the MET in the plus-Y footpad near the left side of the picture, beyond the erectable S-Band antenna, during an 8 December 1970 training exercise by the prime crew.]

113:58:13 Shepard: And going back to adjust the MESA. (Pause)

[Al is now on the cuff checklist page that starts with the
0+26 activities. That is, he is supposed to be 26 minutes into the EVA.
In reality, it has only been 19 minutes since the EVA started at
113:39.]

113:58:25 Mitchell: Mobility is very great under this crushing one-sixth-g load, Houston.

113:58:36 McCandless: Roger. (Pause)

[In the TV, we can see Ed hopping and jumping, being very
vigorous as he checks his ability to move around. He has only been on the
surface about 2 1/2 minutes.]

[Jones - "It looks like you were hopping from one foot to the other,
almost immediately."]

[Mitchell - "The first thing you do on here (in the checklist at 0+18) is the
ascent check and then do a stability and mobility check. You have a few
minutes to get familiar with the surface."]

[Jones - "But it looked to me like you were trying the foot-to-foot
stride right away."]

[Mitchell - "Yeah. And that never worked for me. I did not end up
doing that. I ended up using the bunny hop."]

[Jones - "There's a kangaroo hop or bunny hop which is a two-footed
hop; and some of the guys did a kind of a skip with one foot leading all
the time."]

113:59:08 Shepard: We knew the troops on the ground would be glad to hear that. (Pause)

[Mitchell - "This was an inside joke. The backup crew, led by Cernan, were convinced we'd discard the MET before we got there with it. And all of us agreed (that) it might be sort of a problem, but the notion of having to carry equipment without the MET - to me - was a worse solution. So Al and I said, 'Now, we'll get it up there somehow.' And we did, as you know, we ended up carrying the damn thing up the last little bit because it was easier than pulling, 'cause it was bouncing. In that one-sixth g, even with the weight on it, it was about to flop over and was bouncing all around. So it was easier in moving fast (to carry it). If we moved slow and just dogged it and moved along, okay, it'd stay on the ground. But if we tried to move at a normal speed, it was very unstable. It just bounced around."]

[Jones - "Would you agree with the statement that walking, as opposed to any of the three gliding steps (hopping, skipping, and striding/loping), is harder."]

[Mitchell - "Oh, yes, yes, yes. You take full advantage of the
one-sixth gravity and your strength. (In the suit) the thing you had the
most freedom to do is push with your legs. So, if you pushed with your
legs, then you floated for a nice long stride. To me the stride was not
effective and efficient enough. By just giving a little push I could glide
for long steps. And it was more of a bunny hop than a kangaroo hop where
you're hitting with two feet."]

113:59:19 McCandless: Okay. And here comes the lens cap.

[Al is covering the TV lens to prevent a recurrence of the
Apollo 12 accident in which Al Bean pointed the TV at the Sun and burned
out the vidicon tube.]

113:59:20 Shepard: (At 0+26 in his checklist) The MESA blanket is coming off here. You'll lose...

[Ed's use of "señor"may be a reference to the humor of comedian Bill Dana. His character, Jose Jimenez, the reluctant astronaut, was a favorite of Al's. Another possibility is that, living in Houston with its substantial Hispanic population, the astronauts would have picked up some Spanish simply by living there. Journal Contributor Bethany Lewis notes that the first use of Spanish on the lunar surface was at 111:24:25 during Apollo 11 when, having help Neil stow the film magazine from the Close-up Stereo Camera in his thigh pocket, Buzz turned to head up the ladder to the cabin, saying "Okay. Adios, amigo."]

[Ed's next task - at 0+28 in his checklist - is to raise the MESA table, a small platform designed to hold one of the rock boxes. He can't do that until Al finishes with the MESA thermal blanket and gets the TV off.]

[Al removes the lens cap at about 114:05:25.]

114:00:09 Mitchell: Okay. (Long Pause) (Garbled) back on?

114:00:29 Shepard: Ed...Just barely.

114:00:33 Mitchell: Great. (Pause)

114:00:38 Shepard: Okay, the lens cap is going on now, Houston.
While we set up the tripod...

[The EMU is the Extravehicular Mobility Unit, which is the
combination of suit, PLSS, LEVA, etc.]

[Jones - "I have been told that a request for an EMU status check was
sometimes a request for you guys to slow down."]

[Mitchell - "It was at sometimes but, in this case, they just wanted
to get a reading. They did that sometimes at rather inopportune moments
but, since it only took a second to get it, nobody objected. And, yeah,
I'm sure they also did it at times when they wanted us to take a little
pause."]

114:01:39 Mitchell: Houston. While Al's getting that television, I'll go ahead and get my contingency sample; get it out of the way.

114:01:52 McCandless: Roger, Ed. (Long Pause)

[Ed is supposed to do his next few tasks at the MESA but,
since Al is still in the way, he has decided to jump ahead to 0+32 and take
the contingency sample.]

114:02:46 Mitchell: Houston. The contingency sample is being taken
about 25 feet in the 0100 position of the LM, adjacent to about a 5-foot
crater. I'll identify it for you later.

[In LM-centered coordinates, 12 o'clock is west and 0100, or
1 o'clock, is 30 degrees north of west.]

[Mitchell, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "Getting the CSRC
(Contingency Sample Return Container) out was no problem. I did overfill
that bag and it caused subsequent problems in getting it closed up
properly. The top of the bag did crack, apparently because of the cold or
the vacuum effects, so that the contingency sample was leaking. It caused
us to handle it a bit differently when we subsequently stowed it. We
stowed it in one of the rock bags, instead of being able to stow it by
itself. It was leaking very badly."]

[Some of the Apollo 12 sample bags also cracked. There is no discussion of
this problem in either mission report. However, because there were no
reported bag problems on the subsequent missions, the bag design must have
been altered to incorporate materials less sensitive to extreme temperature
swings and to vacuum.]

114:03:08 McCandless: Roger, out. (Long Pause)

114:03:59 Shepard: Do you want to watch the (TV) cable as I go out,
Ed?

114:08:06 Shepard: Okay, this is the next adjustment to f/22. There
you go.

114:08:14 McCandless: Roger. (Long Pause)

[Up to this point, Ed's image in the TV has been badly
bloomed. The change to peak control solves that problem but at the price
of a fairly dark picture.]

[Jones - "Ed, we haven't heard from you in a while."]

[Mitchell - "Let's see. (Scanning the items at 0+28 on his cuff
checklist) I deploy the SRC table, unstow the ETB and off-load the bags,
load two (PLSS) LiOH canisters in the ETB, deploy the TV cable, take the CSRC
sample (Contingency Sample Return Container)...I've already done that. I
did that out of sequence because I had a moment and Al was around the
table. So I got that. Then I went back and deployed the SRC table,
unstowed the ETB (film mags, cameras, etc.), loaded the two LiOH canisters
out of the MESA into the ETB to go back into the cabin and deployed the TV
cable. So that's what I'm doing through all this period."]

[Jones - "On the J missions they had the food for days 2 and 3 down in the MESA."]

114:08:48 McCandless: Al, this is Houston. Would you confirm that
you're at f/22 now?

114:08:54 Shepard: Okay, I'm confirming that I'm in peak and I'm at
f/22. (Long Pause) And while we're waiting for the television adjustment,
the 2:30 position (at) approximately 50 feet, where the camera is, is
slightly uphill. We see that the LM did, in fact, land on sort of a
downslope...

114:09:43 McCandless: Al, this is Houston...

114:09:44 Shepard: ...It seems to be almost a basin. (Listens) Go
ahead.

114:09:48 McCandless: Roger, Al; this is Houston. We'd like to go
back to average and f/44; stop it down all the way, and then leave it
there.

114:09:57 Shepard: Okay, this is the last adjustment. I'm going to
44.

114:10:04 McCandless: Roger, and back the zoom out to about 35.

114:10:07 Shepard: And going to average. And back the zoom, out to 35. And how does that look?

114:10:19 McCandless: Beautiful.

[The picture brightens and Ed's image blooms again. The MET is visible in the north footpad, the one closest to the TV.]

[The S-Band antenna is a large parasol antenna which will give them an improved signal, primarily for the TV. The delay in the TV adjustment has cost Al the few minutes he was ahead in the timeline. He is right on schedule at 0+31 in his checklist. The S-Band antenna is stowed in Quad 1, to the right of the ladder.]

114:10:31 Shepard: Again continuing; the soil is very fine here. Very fine grained; and, as we mentioned before, there are very few samples of any size at all. Mostly hand-sample size and rocks of generally under 2 inches or less.

[Jones - "We can see in the video that, when Al's going back to the LM to get the erectable S-Band antenna, basically he seems to be walking and is not bounding at all."]

[Mitchell - "No, he's not moving very fast at this point. He's
probably still not terribly comfortable with the gait. We're not trying to
move around quickly, we're not covering distance at this point. Mostly
trying to be methodical and thorough in getting everything done. He's not
moving very rapidly, at all."]

[Jones - "On 15, somebody did a time-motion study on Jim and Dave. On
the first day, working around the LM, they were doing about a foot per
second average. One and a half (fps) on the second day; and up to two
(fps) on the third day as they got more confident. Similar thing here, I
would say."]

114:11:05 Mitchell: Houston, as you can see, the SRC table is
deployed. ETB is emptied; and I'm putting LiOH canisters in it now.

114:11:20 McCandless: Roger, Ed. And you did leave the contingency
sample on the ladder (as per checklist)?

[Jones - "Did you do any one-man EVA training? Would
you have cross-trained on the deployment of the high-gain (S-band
antenna)?"]

[Mitchell - "Oh, yes. We didn't spend a lot of time on it. But we
did a couple of sessions practicing the other guy's job."]

[Jones - "And would that have been for the one-man
contingency?"]

[Mitchell - "We frankly didn't worry too much about the one-man
contingency. As much as anything, I think it was valuable in understanding
the other fellow's problems and, if he got in trouble, to come help him.
And it worked out pretty well because, as you know, when we were setting up
the (ALSEP) station, where we each had to be working on some of the stuff,
we had problems. So cross-training helped a lot with that. And then, had
we had to think about a one-man EVA, either one of us could have done what
we needed to do."]

114:11:32 Shepard: Yes, it looks as though we've landed in a fairly
rough place.

114:11:36 Mitchell: Yes; indeed it does. Evidenced by the fact that
you dug your front landing gear into a hole. (Long Pause) Okay, Houston.
I have the SWC (Solar Wind Collector) out and starting now to deploy it.

[NASA's Public Affairs commentator reports that they both
had heart rates coming down the ladder that peaked at about 120 beats per
minute. Both of them are now in the 70-85 range. Figure 10-4 in the Apollo 14 Mission Report shows the crew's heart rates during EVA-1. How the displayed data was chosen is not known. In each 10-minute interval, as many as 7 or as few as 3 data points are shown implying either averaging or selection of typical values.]

[Ed will deploy the SWC
60 feet from the LM at the 10 o'clock position. He is at 0+37 in his
checklist.]

[Al moves away from the bay to the right of the ladder, carrying the antenna package.]

114:12:24 McCandless: That's affirmative.

114:12:28 Mitchell: Okay. (Long Pause)

[As he moves past the ladder, going away from the TV to
deploy the SWC, he is definitely bounding, albeit not with the confidence
and length of stride that he will show later. He passes Al, who brings the
S-band antenna toward the TV. Al is moving more quickly than he was, but is
not getting both feet off the ground. Once he gets out of the LM shadow, he begins to run, getting both feet off the ground and floating between strides.]

114:12:42 Shepard: Okay, Al is bringing the S-band antenna around (the ladder to a spot 20 feet out from the LM at the 3 o'clock position).

[Note that McCandless is giving a time relative to the
planned time of launch, 40:03 earlier than the actual launch. Ed's next
task is to off-load the Laser Ranging Retro-Reflector or LR-cubed which he will place in the plus-Z footpad to get it out of the way. Later, when the
crew goes out to the ALSEP site, Al will carry the LR-cubed and, once it is
deployed, astronomers on Earth will be able to illuminate it with laser
pulses and, by measuring the times of the return, will be able to determine
the distance between the telescope and the reflector with an error of only
about three centimeters. In all, three retroreflectors were deployed during
Apollo - one each on Apollo 11, 14, and 15 - and they produced data which
was of great use in making accurate determinations of the relative motions
of the Earth and the Moon.]

[At about 114:14:04, Al discards the end cap on the top of the antenna package off-camera to the left.]

[Ed goes to the southwest face of the LM to get the LR-cubed. As he moves,
he is starting to use the stride that he calls the bunny hop or floating
skip, keeping one foot forward, pushing off and gliding a short distance,
landing on his back foot and then his front, and pushing off
again.]

114:14:47 Mitchell: And, Houston, the LR-cubed is coming off.

114:14:50 McCandless: Roger, Ed.

[Comm Break. In the foreground, Al extends the mast which will hold the transmitter/receiver at the focus of the S-band antenna and then extends the antenna's three legs. After getting the legs out, he lets them fold down onto the surface and then picks up the antenna assembly. This lets the legs drop down into their final, locked
position.]

114:15:58 McCandless: Al, this is Houston. If you would, give us
some commentary on how the legs go into the surface.

114:16:10 Shepard: Okay, the legs are in the surface approximately 1 inch, I would say. Appear to be fairly equal all the way around; perhaps the leg to the left is in an inch and a half. (Pause)

[Ed goes to the MESA, hopping sideways as he moves over from near the ladder. During the J-missions, many of the astronauts used this
sideways hop when they worked around the spacecraft. In using this stride
over short distances, they avoided the wasted motions of turning, going
forward, and then turning again. In addition, they probably had more
control and were able to stop with greater ease and
assurance.]

114:16:41 McCandless: (To Al) Roger. We were driving more at force penetration. And did you meet any rocks or anything like that?

114:16:51 Shepard: I didn't attempt to run any kind of an
experiment...

114:16:54 McCandless: Roger, I copy.

114:16:55 Shepard: ...forcing the legs down. I just...(Listens;
Long Pause)

[Mitchell - "Right. That was a geologist in the Backroom trying to
get eager, trying to think ahead about the surface and what sort of problem
we were going to have with core tubes, etc. So they're just trying to get
advanced information. And Bruce recognized that a question like that can
break the flow of your concentration. That's why CapComs were always
astronauts. Because other guys would tend to not understand the problem of
breaking in with things that don't pertain to what's going on."]

[Jones - "Did CapComs do a lot of filtering? Did they ignore
questions that they thought were inappropriate?"]

[Mitchell - "Well, if it came from the Flight Director, the question
got asked. But they would pick and choose their time. And they'd fuss
back and say, 'Hey, I don't think we'll ask them that
now.'"]

[Jones - "And leading with the left foot. Very small and very subtle,
at least with the resolution that's possible on this copy of the
video."]

[Mitchell - "Right. I'm not striding....I don't know if I can do it
here or not. (Attempting a demonstration) You can't float (on Earth). I
seemed to always have my left foot forward. And, so what I'm doing...I'm
landing on the right and then pushing off on the left. But I'm not
striding. See, I'm landing on the right - so it's going boom-boom - and
push with the left, come down on the right but my feet are always
(positioned with the left slightly forward)."]

[Jones - "And at this stage of the game you're not getting a lot of
lift and they're fairly small strides."]

[Mitchell - "Right, and they'll get longer as I get more
comfortable."]

114:17:27 Mitchell: Al, you're too far away. I should have more
cable than that. It's hung up. (Pause as Ed goes back to the MESA to free
the cable)

114:17:43 Shepard: (Having turned to see how far he is from the end
of the cable) Okay. How are we with respect to the cable.

114:17:51 Shepard: Well, I wanted to get maximum length; but I'll
moving on in.

[Mitchell - "This is our first of example of distances
being deceiving. It's difficult when you go into a clear environment where
there's no obstruction to visibility. It's like going out in the great
southwest with a clear view to the mountains and you'll misjudge that
distance. And you get on the lunar surface where there's no air and no
obstruction to visibility - except the curvature - and, again, you're
misjudging distance. It's something in our brain; it's a visual acuity
we're conditioned to. It's not just the relative size of things, but it's
a relative clarity of things that's a cue to part of our distance
estimating procedure. And, when you change that...Al is even missing a
fifty foot estimation...because he normally could estimate that distance
right to within a few inches. And there you see he missed it by at least
ten feet. And I attribute part of that just to the fact that everything is
new, strange, unfamiliar. And it is exceedingly difficult to estimate
distance."]

[Jones - "Jack Schmitt compares it to the difference between a place like here in Florida, where you've got a lot of haze in the
air..."]

[Mitchell - "That's right."]

[Jones - "...and someplace in the mountain west where, unless the
wind's blowing and you've got a lot of dust, it's clear."]

[Mitchell, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "The S-band antenna was deployed too far out. The confined area used in the training building never allowed us to deploy that antenna to the full length of the cable. So we really didn't know how far to carry it out. Consequently, Al carried it to where he thought it should be, and it was just too far."]

[The release mechanism is at about shoulder height and, as
was the case earlier in the deployment, Al doesn't appear to have any
trouble working with his hands at that height. After releasing the
umbrella, he holds onto the antenna frame as the umbrella oscillates and
shakes the entire assembly. The umbrella fails to fully
deploy.]

114:18:53 Mitchell: It's hung up at the top.

114:18:54 Shepard: Okay.

114:18:55 Mitchell: Yep. Can you tilt it over toward me without
dropping it...I'll get it unhung for you.

114:19:01 Shepard: All righty. (Pause) Ready for it?

114:19:09 Mitchell: Okay, lower it on down.

114:19:10 Shepard: Okay.

114:19:13 Mitchell: Keep coming.

[Al raises the antenna and turns it 90 degrees so that Ed
can free the umbrella.]

[Shepard, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "The netting on the
antenna hung up on the top of one of the umbrella ribs and it did not
deploy fully. I lifted it up, tilted it over, and Ed reached up and
deployed it. He released the little netting cufflink from the rib...and it
went right on up after that."]

[Mitchell - "A 'freebie' is something for free. And
that's referring to little glitches that come along - that weren't planned
for - that screw things up. And the boys in the Backroom - the failure
simulator guys - were always throwing problems and glitches in. So that's
just a little inside reference to...it's kind of like 'Kilroy was
here.'"]

[Jones - "So this was just an added opportunity in this simulation to
work out a little problem."]

114:19:59 Mitchell: Sure you got it?

114:20:04 Shepard: Appears to be.

114:20:06 Mitchell: Okay. (Long Pause)

114:20:34 Mitchell: Okay! There's Earth, way up there.

[Jones - "You were about mid-longitude and a little bit
north of the equator?"]

[Mitchell - "A little south. It was almost overhead, slightly off the
vertex."]

[Jones - "And, do I remember correctly that there was some kind of a
hand crank to adjust the pointing?"]

[Mitchell - "Yeah. It was kind of like a little telescope crank, that
you can change azimuth and elevation on - to get it centered. Al was
helping and I was sighting through the tube."]

114:20:40 Shepard: Okay. How does that look (garbled).

[They have done a rough, eyeball
alignment. Al is at the bottom of his 0+31checklist paragraph. Ed is at the bottom of his 0+42 paragraph.]

114:20:42 Mitchell: Looks like it's getting close. Let me get on the glass.

[Al is standing west of the antenna and Ed hops sideways
around him to get to the sighting scope on the LM-ward
side.]

114:20:45 Shepard: Very good. (I'll) turn it to the left a little
more. (Pause)

[Jones - "Here at 114:20:42, you just moved around to
'get on the glass here'. And that's the little sighting scope. Al's got
the antenna rough pointed. It looks like it's depressed from the vertical
by about 30 degrees toward the east."]

[Mitchell - "I think Al's holding it to try to keep it steady. We're
so clumsy and it's so lightweight that, by bumping it, you knock the whole
damn thing awry. So, as I recall, Al was holding it down so that we
wouldn't bump it while I was trying this fine
adjustment."]

114:20:54 Shepard: (I'll) put some weight on it because that changes
the whole deal.

[Al is probably noticing that, as Ed turns the crank, the
antenna moves, so he is going to hold it down.]

114:21:04 Shepard: That's about it. (Garbled) Azimuth

114:21:07 Mitchell: Okay. I don't see it, Al.

114:21:08 Shepard: I'll just put it back down again. Okay.

114:21:16 Mitchell: Okay. I think my PLSS - my OPS - is hitting
it.

114:21:19 Shepard: All right, just a second. Let me back it off a
minute. And move this a little bit. (Pause) Okay, that's about it for
azimuth. I'll come down a little bit.

114:21:34 Mitchell: Okay.

114:21:36 Shepard: Let me just check and see if that's the way we
want to go. (Pause) (Garbled) pretty soon.

114:21:47 Mitchell: Okay.

114:21:49 Shepard: Okay, come on down a little bit.

114:21:50 Mitchell: Coming down. (Pause)

114:21:56 Shepard: Hold it.

114:21:57 Mitchell: Back up just a bit. Right there. Okay, I have
the Earth centered.

114:22:16 Shepard: Okay. The S-band antenna has been erected and
aligned and the cable has been attached.

114:22:20 Mitchell: And I'll go back in to switch.

[They are at 0+49 in Ed's checklist and also at 0+49 in Al's and 0+43 into the actual
EVA, meaning that they are about 6 minutes ahead and are working very
efficiently.]

[Ed goes to the ladder, using his skipping stride. He will climb back into
the LM to change a couple of switch settings so that they can transmit
through the S-Band antenna. While Ed is in the cabin, Al will send the ETB
up on the LEC with the contingency sample and the lithium hydroxide
canisters and, once Ed has those out of the way, he will load the cameras,
film magazines, maps, and a thermal degradation experiment in the ETB and
send it out.]

114:22:28 McCandless: Roger, Ed.

114:22:30 Shepard: Okay. (Pause)

[Al walks to the MESA, still not getting off the
ground.]

114:22:34 McCandless: And we'd like to get an EMU status report as
you go by.

114:22:41 Shepard: Okay. The CDR's reading 3.75 (psi). Reading
76 (percent) on the O2. I have no flags; I'm still in minimum flow; and I'm
comfortable.

114:22:56 Mitchell: Okay, and this is Ed. I'm reading 3.75, about
75 percent on the O2, no flags, minimum cooling, and I'm very comfortable,
too.

[Mitchell - "That was high on the geologists' priority
list. 'Never forget the contingency sample.' Always double bugging us
that we had the contingency sample. They wanted something. It became kind
of an in-house joke, because they were so insistent on that, almost to the
exclusion of everything else."]

[Jones - "A little piece of Fra Mauro, in case you had to abort the
EVA. (Pause) As long as we've got the video stopped here, is there
anything you want to say about your experiences with the LEC? Later on - I
think after the second EVA - you just hopped up the ladder carrying some of
the stuff, rather than bothering with the LEC. Is there anything you want
to say about that?"]

[Mitchell - "Yeah. It was cumbersome. You could do it. Once you got
familiar and comfortable moving around, you could do a lot more things than
you'd thought you could. The LEC seemed to be a little bit more of a
problem than it was really worth, unless you were having to carry a whole
lot of things. Frankly, we got where we could get up and down that ladder
pretty darn handily. In one-sixth g, you found you could do things you
didn't think you could do when you were training for it."]

[Ed starts climbing the ladder; and Al goes to the ladder strut and gets
the contingency sample ('CS' in his checklist) so he can put it in the ETB.]

114:24:03 Mitchell: (Stamping his feet at the top of the ladder) Hey, Bruce. Is any appreciable dust flying off these boots? I'd like not to take all that dirt in there.

114:24:10 McCandless: I didn't notice any on the TV.

114:24:15 Mitchell: Good. (Long Pause)

[Ed crawls into the cabin. Al is at the MESA loading the
contingency sample and attaching the ETB to the LEC. (Isn't NASA jargon
wonderful?)]

[Mitchell, from the 1971 technical Debrief - "Going in and out of that
hatch you have to remember to keep you posterior up and your head down in
order not to rub the PLSS against that upper hatch seal. It would sure be
bad to damage it. You have to really concentrate when entering in the
horizontal attitude, so that you don't drag the upper seal."]

[Shepard, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "This technique is the
same technique used in the one-sixth-g airplane using the hatch mock-up to
position your body. It isn't complete, but it's excellent
training."]

[Mitchell, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "You're right. In the
one-sixth-g airplane, you normally don't practice getting completely in
because of the time limitation."]

[The one-sixth-g airplane would climb at a steep rate and then would start
down again on a trajectory designed to give one-sixth g inside the cargo
bay. Each arc gave only about a half-minute of one-sixth-g experience, but
many arcs could be flown on a given flight. For obvious reasons, the
aircraft was quickly nicknamed "The Vomit Comet" and its
successors, used for zero-g training and for reduced-gravity experiments of
many types, still go by that name.]

114:24:47 Mitchell: And, Houston, I'm back in the LM.

114:24:50 McCandless: Roger, Ed.

114:24:51 Mitchell: Without a great deal of problem. I'm getting
ready to switch to Lunar Stay. Give me a call, and, if I don't hear you in
about 30 seconds, we'll go back.

[Now that Ed has the ETB in the cabin, he will do the tasks on the 'ETB Trans, Egress' page in his checklist. Al will do some site description as indicated in the middle of the 0+49 paragraph in his checklist.]

114:26:27 Shepard: Okay. While, Bruce is loading up the ETB...

114:26:34 Mitchell: Who?

114:26:35 McCandless: Don't I wish it.

114:26:36 Shepard: (From the foot of the ladder) While Ed is
loading up the ETB...(Listens) While Ed is loading up the ETB (with film
mags and cameras), (as per checklist) I'll describe the general landing
site. We are, in fact, in a low area. (Looking east and south) There
seems to be a general swale or a wide valley between the Triplet Craters
and the Doublet Craters. And we are on the downhill side at this
particular point. (Turning slowly toward the west) It levels off at a
lower elevation to the left of the LM (south), approximately 15 feet lower
there, and then it starts back up to the rim of Doublet. It's a very
uneven landing area here. And, of course, like all of the sections of the
Moon, it's pockmarked by (a) tremendous amount of craters. The surface
here, as we pointed out, is mostly fines and I hate to discuss any kind of
lineations here in the immediate vicinity of the LM, because I can see very
definite indications of the radial dust pattern caused by the descent
engine. And I don't see any other lineal pattern, as such, right here in
the area. (Pause)

114:28:11 Shepard: There are, oh, perhaps half a dozen fairly large
rocks at the 1 o'clock position from the LM. (Uncertain) Perhaps they're
ejected from Cone, although they don't seem to have any particular ray
pattern. They probably are ejected from Doublet, since they appear to be
closer to Doublet than they do Triplet. They are a lighter gray in
material - excuse me - the material is lighter gray in color and I'm
certain that we'll get some of those samples on the way back from our ALSEP
deployment. (Now facing east, apparently trying to keep his eyes in the
shadow of the LM) It's very difficult to assess any kind of stratigraphy
in Cone right now, looking back at it, because we're looking into the Sun
at a low Sun angle, and it's just not the right direction to view that
crater for looking for stratigraphy. But there certainly are boulders on
it. From here, it looks as though they are at least 20 feet in diameter
perhaps, at least the ones we can see here in the western slope. They
appear to be grouped fairly close to the rim of the crater and not too many
large boulders on down the sides of the slopes, the outside rim. (Pause)

[Cone Crater sits on a north/south ridge of ejecta from the
Imbrium Basin and the outer slope to which Al refers is actually the ridge
slope, rather than the outer slope of the Cone Crater
rim.]

114:29:53 Shepard: Here again, it looks as though the LM was
traveling slowly forward and slowly to the right. As you'll see from the
photographs, that's the direction of the landing gear probes, as they are
bent. The footpad plus-Y, for example, has a drag pattern of approximately
1 foot in the dust. (Long Pause)

[Al has been getting a good rest, leaning slightly forward
to get his center of mass over his feet. His knees are slightly bent and
his arms are hanging a foot or so out in front of him, in the natural rest
position of the suit.]

114:30:48 Mitchell: Okay, Al. I've got it (the ETB) loaded. I'm
about ready to start down with it now.

114:30:52 Shepard: Okay.

114:30:53 Mitchell: Just another minute. (Pause) The ISA came loose
from its straps and is being a great major headache.

[The ISA is the Interim Stowage Assembly, which is a set of soft-sided stowage bags on a framework that fits over Al's PLSS recharge station on the bulkhead behind his flight station. The ISA can be seen on the left at Neil Armstrong's back in Apollo 11 training photo
KSC-69PC-319. (Scan by Kipp Teague.) Al goes over to the ladder to get the LEC straps.]

114:31:10 McCandless: Okay, Ed. Before you start transferring, you
want to verify contents in the ETB.

114:31:17 Mitchell: Okay, let me give you a call on them, Bruce. I
put in one black-and-white camera...(correcting himself) television camera,
two Hasselblads, one TDS, two 16-millimeter Mags, and two maps.

[The TDS is the Thermal Degradation Sample. The following
is taken from the Apollo 14 Preliminary Science Report: "The purpose
of the TDS experiment was to evaluate the effect of lunar dust on the
optical properties (absorptivity and emissivity) of a dozen candidate
thermal coatings. The coatings may be used in subsequent lunar missions on
such items as the lunar communications relay unit, the lunar roving
vehicle, the television camera, and the Apollo lunar-surface experiments
package."]

["Two duplicate arrays (serial nos. 1001 and 1002), each containing
samples of the 12 thermal coatings, were taken to the Moon. A series of
seven stereopairs of the arrays was obtained for three conditions: when the
arrays were pristine (i.e. before exposure to lunar soil), when the arrays
were dusted, and after the lunar dust had been brushed off. The arrays were
then packaged and returned to Earth for extensive examination and
testing."]

114:31:36 McCandless: Roger. Did you get the 16-millimeter camera
with Mag attached? (Pause)

114:31:47 Mitchell: No. Thank you. Guess we kind of need that
one.

114:31:56 Shepard: Yeah, that's the one that's supposed to
photograph you coming down the ladder!

[After Al films Ed's climb down the ladder, they will mount
the camera on the MET for traverse photography.]

[Jones - "As long as we're stopped...when you were in the spacecraft,
could you see down the ladder?"]

[Mitchell - "You could see the porch, but you couldn't see down the
ladder. In fact, to see anything beyond just the first few inches of the
porch you had to bend down. The only way to see out was to look out the
window."]

114:32:01 Mitchell: Oh, oh. (Pause) All of the contingency...The
disposal containers just fell out on the floor. Just a minute. (I'll) get
the (16-mm) camera. (Pause)

114:32:34 Shepard: Okay, Houston. With respect to the erosion
pattern, directly under the engine bell there is very little erosion. Most
of the erosion occurs about 3 feet to the southeast of the current location
of the bell. That's probably where the thrust was when the engine was cut
off. And the LM slowly drifted to the northwest from there. (Pause)

114:33:30 Shepard: As perhaps you can see from your (TV) camera
Houston, the view off to the south is undulating hills. And I would
estimate that (highest) hill back there to the south is, oh, perhaps 100
feet higher than we are.

114:34:31 Shepard: Okay, just a second here, we'll get a little more
tension. Coming over the sill. (Pause) Put a little more tension,
please. There you are. Okay, coming over the steps now. (Pause) Okay.
Clear of the steps; and I'll take it down slowly.

114:34:58 Mitchell: Do you have it in hand?

[Al moves to his left before letting the ETB all the way
down.]

114:35:00 Shepard: Negative. Just hold it right there for a minute.
Okay, ease it down a couple of feet. Okay, I have it now. Thank you.

114:35:13 Mitchell: And it's all yours.

114:35:14 Shepard: Very good. I've got it.

114:35:18 Mitchell: All right. Coming out again.

114:35:22 McCandless: Okay. ...

114:35:22 Shepard: Wait a minute. I'll get a picture of you.

114:35:24 Mitchell: Okay.

114:35:23 McCandless: Give Al a few seconds to get the camera
(unloaded before Ed comes back out)...(Long Pause)

[Al is unloading the ETB at the MESA. He is at the bottom on the 0+49 paragraph in his checklist.]

[Next, they will deploy the U.S. flag. Photo
KSC-70P-503 shows Ed and Al practicing the flag deployment in the Training Building at the Cape on 8 December 1970. Note that the MET is in the plus-Y footpad beyond the S-Band antenna. A detailed discussion of the flag assembly can be found in Anne Platoff's 'Where No Flag Has Gone Before'. On Apollos 11 and 12, the flag was stowed in a thermal shroud attached to the underside of the lefthand ladder rail. On Apollo 14 and later missions it was stowed in the MESA.]

114:39:10 Shepard: Okay, we're right on the timeline. Right to the
minute. (Pause)

114:39:27 Mitchell: Okay, I'll take the (16-mm) camera while you get
the flag set up.

114:39:30 Shepard: Okay.

114:39:33 Mitchell: Want to go off to the left over there by the
SWC? (So that Houston can) see it on television.

114:39:41 Shepard: (It will) be the best place, I guess.

114:39:43 Mitchell: Okay, f/8. (Long Pause) The camera was on
1/60th (of a second shutter speed) and I hope it got bumped there.

114:40:20 Shepard: No, that's where it's supposed to be for you.

114:40:22 Mitchell: Was it?

114:40:23 Shepard: Yeah; 2.8, 1/60th.

114:40:26 Mitchell: Okay. (Pause)

[Mitchell was in shadow as he came down the ladder. The
flag deployment, which they will film next, will be in full sunlight and Ed
resets the shutter speed to 1/250th. Ed will mount the 16-mm camera on the
MESA.]

114:40:31 Shepard: Okay. You got it?

114:40:34 Mitchell: Aim my (16 mm) camera out there at about the
right spot.

114:40:37 Shepard: Okay. Let's see. (Pause) Up there on the rise?
(Pause) Be okay?

114:40:54 Mitchell: Let's see where you pointed.

114:40:56 Shepard: Right over there on the rise?

114:40:57 Mitchell: Okay. Let me point a little bit further around
that way. (Pause)

[For the first time in the EVA, Al runs as he comes toward
the TV camera, stopping just as he emerges from the LM shadow.]

[Mitchell, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "One comment on the flag.
Because of the placement of the holes in the training building, we were
fairly well constrained in where the flag was set up. We had already
agreed that we were going to set it on the opposite side of the LM in view
of the TV camera, in real time. Because we didn't have a hole on that side
of the LM mock-up in the training building to practice it there, it took a
few moments to select a site in the view of the (TV) camera and also in the
line of sight of the 16-mm camera. I think that's what caused our delay in
getting the flag set up. In my opinion, the site we selected was a little
too close to the MESA because, at times, it got in the way of the rest of
our work."]

[Training photo 70-H-1119 (scan by J.L. Pickering) shows Al preparing the flag for deployment during a 28 August 1970 exercise. Note the dirt-filled box at the lower left. This is one of the 'hole' to which Ed is referring. See, also, training photo KSC-70P-503 from an 8 December 1970 session.]

[Shepard, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "I would make the general
comment here that you try to set up a timeline for EVAs that would leave
extra time (for contingencies). The last two things we mentioned - the
positioning of the flag and getting the (S-band) antenna out too far - are
the little things that come up during the timeline. If you plan an EVA
that you can do in one g, and after you've done it numerous times in the
mock-up, if you aren't able to get ahead of the timeline, then I think
you've got problems."]

[Mitchell, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "Definitely."]

[Shepard, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "If you have a timeline
you can go through after practicing in one g, and you don't have any built
in pad, then I think when you get on the surface, small, unexpected things
such as the (MESA) blankets being a little hard to pull off, fittings being
harder to use because they're newer, positioning the antenna correctly the
first time; these little things should be allowed for. If you can build in
a 25- to 30-percent pad in your training cycle, then I think that's
somewhere in the ballpark. It's what you need to take care of these little
odds and ends that always crop up."]

[Mitchell, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "To show how our planning
worked out in relation to real time, consistently near the end of our
training, we were getting ahead of our timeline by 25 to 30 minutes by the
end of the ALSEP deployment. We felt that would be adequate to take care
of the extra time that we would use on the surface in being more careful,
and to allow for problems. As it turned out, it really wasn't quite
enough. We ran longer in real time. Of course, there's one factor you
can't take into consideration. That is the fact that you're just a bit
more careful with the actual flight equipment; in the actual case, you want
to be sure you do it exactly right, so this just takes a little extra time.
That's something difficult to factor in there. So I think the fact that
you've got a 25- to 30-percent built-in pad there, and you don't have to
tell people about it because there's no way to explain to them what you
need this for, unless you've been there and done it yourself, or you have
talked to people that have. That's the kind of thing you keep to yourself,
but every follow-on crew should be appraised of it."]

[Mitchell, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "The comment here concerns the 3-foot-diameter crater, 8 to 10 inches deep, between the MESA and the plus-Z (west) footpad, which was somewhat of an annoyance. It placed things on an elevation and sometimes you were on a slope. The reason I mention it because the TV cable, which comes down the
right side of the MESA (the side closest to the ladder), instead of laying flat on the ground, came down over this crater and caused me to tangle up in it several more times than I probably would have
otherwise."]

114:48:39 McCandless: That's affirmative. The horizon is about
two-thirds of the way up from the bottom of the tube. The flag is over
near the left-hand corner of the field-of-view. And that little rise is
sort of centered. (Pause) With the small crater off to the left.

[The LM shadow is draped over the small rise, with the tip
of the shadow near the right edge of the picture.]

114:48:55 Mitchell: Okay, that's just about where I wanted it.
(Hearing McCandless' last sentence) Rog. The far horizon, Bruce, is a
ridge that seems to run around this bowl that we're sitting in...It appears
to be a ridge. It runs down from what we called "Old Nameless"
to the south, and it runs to the west. It seems to be roughly circular
but, of course, we could be a little bit deceived, at this point, on that
score. The little rise you see in front of us is...

114:49:31 McCandless: Say, Ed.

114:49:33 Mitchell: ...a rise that's shown on the map. The craters
are on the map. Since I don't have it handy, it - I'll have to give you
the coordinates later, but I think you already know them. They are about
150 feet south...

114:49:47 McCandless: Ed, this is Houston.

114:49:48 Mitchell: ...southwest of the LM. Go ahead.

114:49:52 McCandless: Roger. If you're going to spend several
seconds describing each of these locations here, after the camera steadies
out you might just as well zoom out a ways, and we'll pick up some features
at random on higher magnification, and zoom back in when you go onto the
next 45-degree sector.

[Ed points the TV a little farther north, with the LM shadow
extending in about a third of the picture width from the
left.]

114:50:11 Mitchell: Okay. All right, I've moved around to the next
sector now. And it's looking down over what we used to call Clover Leaf,
although it's not obvious from here what the clover leaf was. There is a
fairly significant crater about 250 to 300 yards out. I'll try to bring it
in for you. Can you see it out there, Houston?

[Although the picture is badly washed out, the crater in
question extends from the center of the picture over to the left
edge.]

114:50:56 Mitchell: Okay. That crater is kind of in a low spot, but
it's not the lowest spot in this dip that we're in. The lowest spot we
will pick up in out next sector.

114:51:10 McCandless: Okay, bring her (the zoom) back in.

114:51:11 Mitchell: However, I will shoot across it because you won't be able to see it. (Listens) Okay. Now, another sector to the right.

114:51:20 McCandless: Roger.

114:51:21 Mitchell: Facing almost down-Sun.

114:51:24 McCandless: Roger. We got your shadow.

[Other than Ed's shadow, there is very little discernible detail in the picture.]

114:51:25 Mitchell: And...(Listens) Okay. It's a very low spot. The deepest part, I guess, of what we were calling Clover Leaf before, although I did not realize how deep that depression was and I still don't quite...

114:51:47 McCandless: Okay, zoom out while you're talking.

[A comparison of Mitchell's descriptions with Shepard's shows how much more sensitive Ed was to the detail of the scene - or, at least, how much better he was at putting his impressions into words. Mitchell's feel for detail is excellent and his descriptions approach the quality of those given by the very well trained J-mission crews. The J-mission crews had the advantage of having trained as backup crews for landing missions and so, were able to devote a far larger fraction of their prime-crew training time to the surface operations. Mitchell, with Donn Eisele and Gordon Cooper, had been on the backup crew for Apollo 10 and he and Shepard needed to spend most of their training time on flight operations, particularly because Shepard had not served on a backup crew and had to learn the LM from scratch.]

114:51:52 Mitchell: Okay. Can't quite get the relief in my mind, because, it is so different than what I expected. Where you're looking at now - this deep part - is to the south of Doublet, and it's probably 75 to 100 feet below where we are.

114:52:12 McCandless: (Noting that the horizon is now near the
bottom of the frame) Okay, you're aimed up a little high.

114:52:14 Mitchell: It rises up on the far side to (an elevation)
above us. (Listens and lowers his aim) Okay. How's that now?

114:52:19 McCandless: A lot better. Say, Ed, you don't need to stop
talking when I talk if you can do both at once.

114:52:26 Mitchell: Okay. I have a little
trouble listening to you and talking at you, too. Not polite. (Chuckles).
Okay. I'm bringing it back in. And coming around through the
west-northwest (and stopping just as his shadow goes out the lower left
corner of the picture); and you should be able to see, in the distance,
Doublet Crater. And I've lost it now because of the Sun angle, but it's
just about on the near horizon. I'm sorry; there are three mounds, three
ridges. The nearest one, the ridge that Doublet is on, and then the far
horizon. And I'm bringing it on out for you. Doublet is on the second
hill that you see.

114:53:21 McCandless: Roger, we can see the ridges, and I...

114:53:24 Mitchell: (Garbled).

114:53:24 McCandless: ...can see a crater that probably is Doublet.

[Even though McCandless claims to pick out Doublet, I certainly can't.]

114:53:26 Mitchell: Okay. We'll zoom back in and move on around, and I think Al's about to finish up his task over there.

[The f-stop settings used relative to the direction of the Sun are shown on decals mounted on the tops of the film magazines. 'HBW' is High-Speed Black-and-White and 'HCEX' is High-Speed Color Exterior.]

[Next, Al took a series of photos of the LM, the footpads, and the surface under the LM. These are AS14-66-
9258 to
9270.]

.
[Frame 9258 shows the north footpad and the pile of dirt pushed up during final spacecraft motions.]

[Frame 9261 shows the sweep pattern and a fist-sized rock under the engine bell.]

[Al is currently working on an 8 o'clock pan, which consists of frames AS14-66-9271 to
9293.]

114:53:39 Shepard: Ed, I just wonder how come McCandless has the audacity to presume that we're wrong about Doublet Crater. (Laughs)

[Mitchell - "Al's picking up on Bruce's remark back up here at 114:53:21. It's just the continual banter that goes back and forth between the guys. We never passed up an opportunity to do
that."]

114:53:48 Mitchell: Very presumptuous. Okay, Bruce, I'm coming
around one more sector. (Pause) I'm going to move it just a little bit
more (and) you should be able to see the four or five rocks I was talking
about in my discussion before we got out of the LM. Now, I'll zoom in on
those if I may.

114:55:31 Mitchell: Okay. There's the south quadruplet crater, and then there's the next one and the next one and the largest one.

114:55:43 McCandless: Roger. (Pause) Okay, we probably better go back to zoom 25 and press on with the panorama.

114:55:52 Mitchell: Okay, I'm at zoom 25. And I'm looking almost
due north now. I'll swing back around and pan for my rocks. There's the
rocks we were looking at. Panning slowly to the north, you can now see the undulations, the ridges that I was talking about.

114:56:14 McCandless: Roger.

114:56:15 Mitchell: There's not a level portion out here that's more than a few square meters. And you can see at least three ridges between us and the horizon. Now, I'll zoom in out here once more. Let you see at close-hand what's out there. Another pile of rocks (and) more ridges.

114:56:44 McCandless: You're pointing at the sky. (Pause)

114:56:51 Mitchell: Okay.

114:56:52 McCandless: That's better.

114:56:53 Mitchell: You need a gunsight on this thing.

114:56:54 McCandless: You sure do.

114:56:55 Mitchell: That better?

114:56:56 McCandless: Yeah. The horizon is about one quarter of the way up.

114:57:28 McCandless: Roger, Al. 110, Indianapolis, Indiana. And, Ed, a frame or two ago it looked like one of those rocks was split right down the middle. Did you notice that, too?

114:57:47 Shepard: I don't think it is. I...It may be; it may look
like it from there. We'll go by there later on.

114:57:57 McCandless: Roger. Let's press on with the TV panorama. (Pause) We're about 2 minutes behind timeline at this point, Ed. And you're looking at sky again. Bring her down. Okay. Okay, Ed, we're recording all this on video tape so that it only takes a relatively brief period of time looking at the scene that we can play it back, frame at a time, later on. (Pause) Back to 25 (zoom). (Pause) Ed. Are you reading me?

[According to the Apollo 16 Mission Rules, the only set I
have handy, the EVA would have to be terminated if both members of the crew lost comm with Houston. Obviously, everyone would like to have a
completely functional comm system. Readers should note that McCandless' "Oh, God" is the only reaction of its kind by an EVA CapCom. A more usual response would be "Roger. Ed, this is Houston; we're not reading you." In other words, don't voice concern, especially if the problem is likely to be easily fixed.]

114:59:16 Mitchell: Okay, Bruce, now you are; I hit the transmit
switch to off.

114:59:21 McCandless: Roger! Loud and clear.

[The switch in question is probably the Mode Select switch
on the top, right-hand side, of the RCU.]

114:59:25 Mitchell: The horizon that you see in this view is the
north flank leading up to Cone Crater. It's probably over a mile away, a
mile and a half away. I'll give a quick zoom in on it. And then I can't
go any closer to the Sun right now.

[That is, he doesn't want to risk burning out the vidicon
tube by getting the Sun in the field-of-view. The Cone Crater ridge is
mostly in shadow but can be seen on the horizon to the right of
center.]

114:59:49 Shepard: Okay, we're at the time to
deploy the MET, Ed, if you want to swing it on back around.

115:00:55 Mitchell: Okay. (Pause)

[They are at 1+15 in both Al's and Ed's checklists and 1+20 in the EVA. Ed pans the camera counter-clockwise - thereby avoiding pointing it toward the Sun - until he has it pointed at the MESA. Al is walking from the MESA over to the plus-Y footpad to get the MET.]

115:00:00 Mitchell: Bruce, what was the zoom setting you
wanted...

115:00:02 McCandless: Okay, let's try...

115:00:02 Mitchell: ...(Garbled) for the MET?

115:00:03 McCandless: ...it at about 45 there; we'd like to get the
flag in at the right extremity and the plus-Y (north footpad), if we can,
at the left extremity. Hold that. Pan left about 2 degrees.

115:00:29 McCandless: Yeah. Back it out about to 40 on the zoom.
(Pause) Okay, that's good.

115:00:39 Mitchell: Okay.

115:00:40 Shepard: (Garbled) really. Okay.

[Mitchell - "It's like a sloppy feedback system. You
do something that you think is right but, two and a half seconds later you
hear them talk about a position you've already moved away
from."]

115:00:44 McCandless: Okay. Al and Ed, if we could get you both in the field-of-view there for a minute, we've got a
message for you.

115:00:54 Shepard: Okay. (Pause)

[Ed makes his way over toward the flag. He uses a mixture
of skipping steps and doesn't yet have the confident movements he will show
later. He does, however, appear to have good control of his center of
mass. Astronaut Deke Slayton, the Director of Flight Crew Operations,
joins the conversation.]

[Al is carrying the MET to a spot just north of the MESA and
stops and turns toward the television, holding the MET easily in his right
hand.]

115:01:09 Slayton: Okay. We were very pleased a few minutes ago to
receive a phone call here in Mission Control from President Nixon. He
asked me to extend to you and to Stu his best congratulations. He said
that, like millions of people all over the world, he is an astronaut
watcher at this time. The picture is coming in very well at the White
House, he said. The President said he knew how many thousands of people
had worked on this mission without whom men would not be walking safely on
the moon. He asked that I wish the Apollo entire team well. The President
said he was proud of you and proud of them. He sent you a wire just before
the flight wishing you Godspeed, and he wishes you well on your return
flight. The President also asked me to invite you to the White House for
dinner and to spend the weekend at Camp David with your families after the
mission is completed. Over.

115:02:13 Slayton: Roger. Will do. I don't think Stu got this, but we'll see he gets it later.

[Ed goes over to Al to help him set up the MET, which is currently folded up on itself. Ed stands between Al and the TV and blocks Houston's view of the deployment. He moves out of the way occasionally, but the images of the astronauts and the MET are so badly saturated that little useful detail is visible. An 8-mm film clip by Ed Dempsey ( 15 sec ) shows Al and Ed deploying the MET during training. Film clip courtesy Frederic Artner; digitized by Ken Glover.]

[Unlike the Rovers of the later missions, which have
wire-mesh tires, the MET has rubber tires inflated pre-flight to 1.5 psi (absolute) with nitrogen. Each of the tires is 16 inches in diameter and is 4 inches wide.]

115:02:52 Mitchell: Wait a minute. (Pause) Okay.

115:03:07 Shepard: Okay. Put it down. (Pause) Let's get
the...(Pause) Deploy it while it's still up here. There we go.

[After unfolding the wheels, they have to lock the front
legs and handle into place. NASA photo KSC-70C-165BW shows the MET next to LM-8 at the Cape.]

115:03:24 Mitchell: Well, let's see...We've had visitors again.

115:03:28 Shepard: Yeah. Hardly worth mentioning.

115:03:33 Mitchell: Agree. (Pause)

[Jones - "I had heard that the backup crew had put greetings in lots of places on the spacecraft. Did you just find one on the MET?"]

[Mitchell - "I think what we're talking about there is one of their patches, because they put the goddamn things all over the spacecraft and, whenever we opened up something, there would be one of them. It had a Roadrunner on it and was a parody of our patch."]

[Journal Contributor Andrew Chaikin wrote in his book A Man On The Moon, "Before the flight, Cernan's crew had devised a mocking version of the Apollo 14 mission patch featuring the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoon characters. On it, the Coyote, representing Shepard's crew, reaches the moon only to find the Road Runner -- Cernan's crew -- is already there, waving a 'First Team' banner. Along the border was printed the Road Runner's trademark 'Beep Beep'. The real message was unfit for
publication: 'Watch your ass -- we're right behind you.' During the flight, Shepard's crew discovered Road Runner patches in every notebook and storage locker in their two spacecraft. Even on the lunar surface, they couldn't escape: There, on the MET, was another 'Beep Beep'." (Used with permission.)]

[Journal Contributor Brian Lawrence has supplied a copy of the
patch and notes: "The backup crew (Roadrunner) are depicted waiting on the Moon for the prime crew (Wile E. Coyote) to arrive. The Coyote has red fur for Roosa, a pot belly for Mitchell, and a grey beard for Shepard."]

115:03:39 Shepard: Okay. Houston, as you can see, the MET is deployed properly.

115:03:45 McCandless: Roger.

115:03:49 Shepard: Looks like it's in good shape.

115:03:53 Mitchell: (Going to the MESA) Okay. (As per checklistI'll get a (70mm) camera (from the ETB). (Pause)

115:04:01 Shepard: Okay, if you want to...Leave this right here, I'll move around to put the TV camera on the scientific equipment (SEQ) bay.

[As per checklist, Al will position the TV camera so that Houston can watch the removal of the ALSEP packages from the stowage
compartment.]

115:04:11 McCandless: Antares, Houston. We'd like to get an EMU
status report at this point.

115:04:14 Shepard: (As he runs out to get the TV) Okay. CDR is 3.7
and reading 72 (percent oxygen remaining); no flags. I'm on low flow (that
is, minimum cooling), and in good shape.

115:04:29 McCandless: Roger.

[Jones - "In the video, we can see that Al's beginning
to get off the ground and is doing a foot-to-foot stride with some
confidence. It's a pretty wide stance, like a running back about to cut
but he's not cutting. He's just real wide."]